Puma is “resetting” this year and the brand’s first quarter results showed a slight improvement.

Over the first three months of 2026, sales at the German sportswear company fell 1 percent, in currency adjusted terms, to 1.86 billion euros.

It was an improvement on the final half of 2025, when Puma sales had plummeted around 10, and then 20, percent during the last two quarters of the year.

It was also above market expectations. Analysts had expected a decline of close to 3 percent and sales of only 1.82 billion euros.

“Operationally, we were off to a solid start to our transition year in 2026,” Puma chief executive Arthur Hoeld, who took on the top job last July, said in a statement. “We have managed to reduce our inventory levels faster than planned, streamlined our product portfolio and addressed operational inefficiencies… We are on track to establish Puma as a top-three sports brand globally, return to above-industry growth and generate healthy profits in the medium term.”

The company has taken back stock, reduced promotional activity, simplified its product portfolio and is cutting jobs. Previously Hoeld has told journalists that “Puma has become too commercial, overexposed in the wrong channels, with too many discounts.”

Earnings before interests and taxes, or EBIT, rose 19.6 percent to 51.9 million euros. This resulted in a slightly improved EBIT margin of 2.8 percent.

In Puma’s home market of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, sales fell 10.4 percent in currency adjusted terms.

This was due to weaker consumer demand as well as reduced wholesale as Puma tried to clear its inventories and avoid products being discounted, the company explained. It was also because of “lower sales in the Middle East amid ongoing conflict in the region,” Puma said in its statement.

Revenues in the Americas increased by 6.1 percent. There, North American consumers bought 2.3 percent more Puma products while in Latin America, they purchased 10.5 percent more.

In the Asia-Pacific region, sales grew by 7.9 percent, currency adjusted, with Greater China contributing a 9 percent increase and the rest of the sales territory bringing in 7.4 percent more.  

While Puma footwear sales — the company’s largest category — sank by 2.3 percent, apparel and accessory sales remained eased 0.9 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.

The company reiterated guidance for the year. It expects sales to continue to decline in the low to mid-single digits over this year as the reset continues. Puma is blaming the forecast sales decline on lower numbers in North America where the company has been over exposed to discounting and is trying to streamline distribution.

EBIT is forecast to come in somewhere between minus 50 million and 150 million euros and this number will include “one-time effects related to the implemented cost efficiency program.”